I'm hoping someone can provide me with advice on how to nail manual focus on an area of the screen that does not have a focus point.

For example, let's say I'm trying to focus on a person's eye. Let's also assume that a focus point is not over that eye (which would allow me to rely on the green focus indicator dot when manually focusing). Finally, let's assume "focus and recompose" is not an option due to wide aperture and that I don't want to swap out my stock D90 screen for ground glass.

Under the set of "rules" that you've given, you'll have to trust you eyes, because that's all you've got. It would be a lot easier with a full frame camera, due to the larger viewfinder, but if you have good eyesight, you should be able to pull it off.

You could get a magnifying eyepiece for your D90; but, those aren't that effective. The DK-21m lists a magnification factor of like 1.17x.
It's not much; but, for manual focus every little bit of magnification can help. I got one for my D200 just to help when using my lensbaby.

I was looking for a magic bullet for situations where I couldn't focus and recompose. Looks like there isn't one. Now, however, I have a valid reason to get a full frame! When my wife shoots that down, I guess I'll just buy the magnifier.

Why not try a Katz eye focus screen as a much cheaper thing to try instead of the FF upgrade? It doesn't save you the focus and recompose, but if you're going to shoot MF it seems like it would be worth the $100 to try it. It doesn't mess with the normal AF performance and supposedly has a very small impact on metering (1/3 stop or something).

Easy! Put it in Live View mode, move the focus point to where you want it to focus, hold the shutter down halfway, let it focus. It takes forever, but hey, you can now focus on ANY part of screen, and you can even check focus by pressing the + magnifying button to zoom in on the area inside of the focus box to check for perfect focus.

PB PM said:
Using liveview for manual focus is all well and good if you shoot from a tripod, but otherwise it is almost useless.

If you read the conditions the OP gives, focus and recompose it not an option.

Well, theirs really no other options. And the only reason focus and recompose is not an option is because he says its not an option, who knows if it actually isn't an option. Their could be a host of reasons its not an option. Can't do it, doesn't like doing it, too slow, but frankly, if your gonna manual focus, I don't see how taking time to focus and recompose is going to make or break a shot. Most things that are manual focused these days should have no issue sitting long enough to focus and recompose. That's not to say people can't MF quickly, but, if you have time to manually focus on it, there should be time to focus and recompose.

Live view focusing, Focus and Recompose, or a D300 and up with the 52 focus point systems are your only options, well, not ONLY, but by principal they are your only options.

Even if their is another way, we would need an EXACT scenario of whats happening. We can't diagnose and resolve an issue without knowing EXACTLY what is going on.

When I focus on someones eye, I simply focus and recompose. It doesn't take that long. If you can do it in the half second from when you say, hey look at me I'm gonna take your picture, and when the person looks away, then all I can say is keep practicing!

I agree, the idea that you cannot use focus and recompose is kind of silly. I kind of forget about that, due to the 51 point AF on the D300, I pick the point I want to manual focus with and go from there.

I didn't want to focus and recompose because I am shooting indoors, at f/1.4 (cause it's not that light), and didn't want to mess up the focus I obtained by recomposing; it wasn't a rule that I just invented to mess with people :) Anyway, I was trying to rule out "focus and recompose" as the cause of my out of focus images.

anjz said:
I didn't want to focus and recompose because I am shooting indoors, at f/1.4 (cause it's not that light), and didn't want to mess up the focus I obtained by recomposing; it wasn't a rule that I just invented to mess with people :) Anyway, I was trying to rule out "focus and recompose" as the cause of my out of focus images.

Thanks for all the ideas!

You shouldn't lose you focus if you recompose. The only f/1.4 lenses Nikon makes are fixed focal length so their will be no focus drift from zooming. Just Focus and Recompose, you won't lose your focus if you have the camera set to AF-S and use AF-Lock, or have it set to MF.